Arc Forums Maintenance: August 26

Tomorrow morning, we will be running maintenance for our English Vanilla forums starting at 6:00 am PDT on Wednesday, August 26. We’re expecting the forums to be down for approximately 28 hours (returning to full operation at 10:00 am PDT on Thursday, August 27).

With this maintenance, our team is looking to re-organize how the forums function and clean the overall layout of the organization of each game in order to ensure that forum users can find what they are looking for. This will introduce:

Hubs: Each forum will now live in their own instance and easy to navigate to. The content within each hub will not change during the migration. We’ll also be adjusting what is viewed per category (for example, viewing parent categories within the first page) in order to better identify the areas of focus for each section.

Search Functions: In our previous feedback thread, there were more search functions requested. We’ve made changes to better archive the searches and have them be accessible including advanced searching.

One area that will change that we want to ensure gets communicated is that we will be removing access to the current forum inboxes as it stands. Instead of using the forum inbox, we recommend using our Arc Mail system, which can be accessed here. The reasoning behind this change is that with the hub separation, we will no longer have a global inbox. Using the Arc Mail feature will ensure that messages get across to all relevant parties. All current messages that are in your inbox will be visible to you once this hub migration is complete.

More importantly, this brings us steps closer to other forum features that we are looking to implement including a developer tracker to follow official posts from our team as well as custom themes that will adjust both the aesthetics and usability of the forums.

As always, we welcome all feedback for the forums and features that you would like to see.

............. I hope you're going to actually get us access to that flagged post queue since you're once again removing communication with the moderators. A lot of times when people are viewing the forums they aren't even at a computer with arc installed.​​

Really hoping this works out well. I've just gotten used to the new forum layouts and now we're changing again. Hoping it doesn't break all the functionality of the extensions we use, themes etc. Not to mention the worry that this will make it impossible to browse from the perfectworld.vanillaforums.com address, if we're forced into that embedded system I may cry.

I do think it's slightly ironic that we went for a big drive about being "all inclusive" with all Arc titles in one forum, and now we're being segregated out again to separate hubs.

Also very sad to see the forum inboxes going. I don't use the Arc client and have no intention of using it simply to do something forums have been doing for a long long time.​​

Trouble with using Arc mail is that you have to add people to your friends list (or if there is a way to mail through Arc without doing so, I haven't found it).

Glad to see search being repaired, but ...

1. Forum titles we paid for need to be restored.
2. Framed pages increase loading time (basically load the page twice, and often have to be refreshed in order to get the full page loaded, even though the unframed page loads fairly quickly and easily before the redirect into frame).
3. Tabs all say "Arc Games" and are bookmarked as such, rather than with any indication of the name of the thread (sure, I could edit the bookmark manually, but shouldn't we be moving forward in terms of "user-friendly," instead of regressing?).
4. Bookmarked threads and direct-to-post links actually take you to the top of the framed page (although before the redirect into frame, it takes you to the actual post, and using an arcgames.com address does not rectify this).
5. Forum language filter is STILL like a nightmare combination of puritanical and Victorian neuroses joined with Hellenologophobia.

Hubs: Each forum will now live in their own instance and easy to navigate to. The content within each hub will not change during the migration. We’ll also be adjusting what is viewed per category (for example, viewing parent categories within the first page) in order to better identify the areas of focus for each section.

I'm not even sure what this means. What is a "hub"? Are you saying that each game will get a new subdomain for its forum?

Search Functions: In our previous feedback thread, there were more search functions requested. We’ve made changes to better archive the searches and have them be accessible including advanced searching.

The most important thing you can do right now is remove the 10-result search limit.

One area that will change that we want to ensure gets communicated is that we will be removing access to the current forum inboxes as it stands. Instead of using the forum inbox, we recommend using our Arc Mail system, which can be accessed here. The reasoning behind this change is that with the hub separation, we will no longer have a global inbox. Using the Arc Mail feature will ensure that messages get across to all relevant parties. All current messages that are in your inbox will be visible to you once this hub migration is complete.

Well, this is annoying. I was just having a conversation with someone, and I wrote a fairly long post too. Forgive me for not trusting your data migration skills after what happened last time. I made my own backups of my PMs.

I'd like to see a change to the Nevewinter forums. Given that come the next xbox update in September there will be very little difference left - could we have the class forums merged? and maybe consider what else is now common between the two platforms.

One area that will change that we want to ensure gets communicated is that we will be removing access to the current forum inboxes as it stands. Instead of using the forum inbox, we recommend using our Arc Mail system, which can be accessed here. The reasoning behind this change is that with the hub separation, we will no longer have a global inbox. Using the Arc Mail feature will ensure that messages get across to all relevant parties. All current messages that are in your inbox will be visible to you once this hub migration is complete.

I thought this forum was missing too many basic features when we first migrated over, but now you're taking away the ability to talk to each other? On a forum? Nobody wants to use arc even on the rare occasions when it actually works properly, trying to force us to use it is only going to convince us to give up and leave.

(...)
I'm sure there's more, but this is all I can think of at the moment.

Good points, I share those worries.

Forcing the whole thing into framed arc pages would indeed be a little nightmare. I came clean with the forums once I discovered you can use perfectworld.vanillaforums.com URL and the custom forum extensions offered by talented users who add a lot of functionality and comfort functions. If this change to the forums negates all of that and once again takes us a few steps backwards in terms of user-friendlyness and liberty in customizing our forum experience I don't know how to deal with it other than considering quitting to use these forums. And I don't want that.

But as always no user concern in the world will influence the already fixed plans PWE has for these forums and the communities within them. At least there wasn't a single instance in the last years to convince me otherwise.​​

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Lazarus Long [font="title-Space Cadet ☮"][/font]Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!

How about updating the freaking Server Symposium... We have 4 servers now not 8

will see what the 'hubs' bring - if they have any sense they will move the current 8 servers to an archive - no posting footing and create 4 new server sub-fora to give a fresh start and maybe leave some of the server-server hostility behind.. a small hope but sometimes that is all you need ​​

I see my posting in the old thread isn't showing here, so they've completely migrated the forums once again into new forums.

EDIT: Yep, BBCode still works. When i chose to edit, it showed "Edit 1hour" which makes me think there may be a time limitation on how long we have to edit posts. Which is something else that would be the stupidest thing ever. Especially for those of us that post guides.​​

Confirmed @sylenthunder , posting in perfectworld.vanillaforums does not appear in these forums here and vice versa. There seem to be two separate forums at this time. It is very confusing. Also, your signature is different in both... (Or you just changed it XD)​​

Confirmed @sylenthunder , posting in perfectworld.vanillaforums does not appear in these forums here and vice versa. There seem to be two separate forums at this time. It is very confusing. Also, your signature is different in both... (Or you just changed it XD)

Regarding the new forums - this is bad for a number of reasons. The ARC overlay slows down loading, features ad-trackers, makes it impossible to distinguish forum tabs or bookmarks, comes with log-in issues - I mean, seriously, it's worse in every possible way... ​​

Well now I figured out how to get to the version of this page which the devs will actually see (you've now got so many versions it's stupid). I'd like to give my feedback for the 'update' to the forums.

You've made them insanely difficult to navigate.
There is no easy way to find the sub sections I'd just gotten used to having access to.
There's no easy way to switch between forums for the different games I play.
The layout has not changed at all for the sub sections I've actually managed to find, so the whole reason behind this seems to be null and void.
Signatures are broken again.
We now only have a 1 hour window to edit posts.

I don't understand what you guys think you've achieved by this, but I'm pretty sure you haven't. Somebody please hit Ctrl+Z then step back from the keyboard.​​

Well now I figured out how to get to the version of this page which the devs will actually see (you've now got so many versions it's stupid). I'd like to give my feedback for the 'update' to the forums.

You've made them insanely difficult to navigate.
There is no easy way to find the sub sections I'd just gotten used to having access to.
There's no easy way to switch between forums for the different games I play.
The layout has not changed at all for the sub sections I've actually managed to find, so the whole reason behind this seems to be null and void.
Signatures are broken again.
We now only have a 1 hour window to edit posts.

I don't understand what you guys think you've achieved by this, but I'm pretty sure you haven't. Somebody please hit Ctrl+Z then step back from the keyboard.

I have to totally agree with this...

If that's the outcome when you guys at PWE try to: "re-organize how the forums function and clean the overall layout of the organization of each game in order to ensure that forum users can find what they are looking for." than I'd rather have it "un-organized".​​

[color="[object Object]"]Well keep in mind it was the power users and mobile users who were using the native vanillaforums.com version of the forums. The normal people were using the embedded version so they won't notice the fact it's a new version as much. Although the embedded URLs are now all different so bookmarks have been broken.

EDIT: How come I can't get the BBCode editor controls to load properly here? [/color]​​

"]Well keep in mind it was the power users and mobile users who were using the native vanillaforums.com version of the forums. The normal people were using the embedded version so they won't notice the fact it's a new version as much. Although the embedded URLs are now all different so bookmarks have been broken.

EDIT: How come I can't get the BBCode editor controls to load properly here? ​​

Because they don't seem to work on this "version" of the forums. Formatting options don't show up at all for me. and they don't work if you type them in manually. Which is great cause ESO just announced a forum writing guide event....and can't format. zzzzzz